


Figures of Speech

by RaisingCaiin



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Fluff, Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-18
Updated: 2017-04-18
Packaged: 2018-10-20 15:33:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10665609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RaisingCaiin/pseuds/RaisingCaiin
Summary: Aziraphale is pouting, and Crowley would rather like to know what he's donenow.





	Figures of Speech

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gabe_mun](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=gabe_mun).



> Just a little gift for the astonishingly talented [gabe-mun](https://gabe-mun.tumblr.com/). Happy birthday, friend!
> 
> EDIT: Now with [the most ~~adorable~~ amazing piece of art](https://gabe-mun.tumblr.com/post/159765414087/raisingcain-onceagain-happy-birthday)!!

The angel was pouting. Not that Crowley would ever say so to his face, of course,[1] and it was actually rather adorable,[2] but Crowley would have rather liked to know what had prompted this particular expression, given how far it fell outside Aziraphale’s typical facial repertoire.[3]

 “What’s gotten your knickers in a twist today, eh?” He held his wine glass up and toward the angel, even going so far as to twiddle the stem between his fingers invitingly. He ignored the perilous sloshing of a particularly fine Cabernet Sauvignon, willing to make even this sacrifice if it meant that Aziraphale would pick up his own glass for a toast.[4]

 “Nothing,” the angel said, refusing to acknowledge that he was supposed to pick up his own glass at this point. If anything, the pout deepened.[5]

 His arm was getting tired, and it really would have been a shame to let such a fine wine go to waste, so Crowley set his glass back down. “If this is how you look when _nothing_ is upsetting you, angel, I’d hate to see what you look like when _something_ is.”[6]

 “Leave it, Crowley, and eat your salad.” Still pouting, Aziraphale finally unbent enough to uncross his arms and tuck his napkin primly onto his lap.[7]

 As if. Ignoring the terrifyingly-healthy salad that had been a filet mignon when it had been delivered to their table,[8] Crowley leaned forward with a grin that spoke volumes.[9] “Leave it? Do you even _know_ me anymore, angel? Leave it, he says. Will not, I say. Not until you tell me what’s got you all ruffled.”

 “Since you’re so fond of poking into things you don’t understand, I’ll explain this one,” Aziraphale huffed.[10],[11] “I’m slightly frustrated because today is an important day, and you seem to have forgotten all about it.”

 It was? Oh. That was news to Crowley. He racked his mind[12] on this intriguing clue for an entire moment, but no potential answers presented themselves.

 “Fine, fine. I’ll bite.[13] What utterly mundane and probably fabricated occurrence have I forgotten about today, and more to the point, what are you actually angry with me for?” They were at the Ritz on time for lunch as usual, right? So he hadn’t forgotten that. What else was there?

 In the meantime, a simple glare of displeasure wilted that dreadful salad back into the piece of cow it was meant to be. He picked up his fork and helped himself to a much-anticipated first bite.

 “Our anniversary, actually.” 

Crowley choked, and not just because the mignon had somehow transformed into romaine and carrots and walnuts and a deliciously tangy but probably horrifyingly healthy dressing while already in his mouth. Bastard. There was no way that Aziraphale had made such a statement without forehand knowledge of the havoc he’d be wreaking on Crowley’s dignity in doing so. Hell, he’d probably timed it for when Crowley had just taken his first mouthful, too.

 Crowley fought the urge not to spit the stuff all out into his hand and wipe that hand across his napkin in disgust. He vanished the mouthful instead, and glared across the table. But at least Aziraphale had graduated from pouting, and was now looking as though butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth.[14]

 “Angel. I don’t think that term means what you think it means.” Yes yes, _The Princess Bride_ was in fact a font of wisdom in times of trouble. So sue him.[15]

 “It means exactly what I intend for it to mean, and if your mind wanders other places in the meantime that’s hardly my fault,” Aziraphale said. He sounded almost cheerful, now, and Crowley was almost, _almost_ willing to just let that particular statement go, just for the sheer relief of seeing a normal expression on the angel’s face. He just wasn’t suited to the stress that was Aziraphale in a snippy mood, he really wasn’t.

 They dined in companionable silence for a time before the bickering over the proper contents of Crowley’s plate started. Such interference, of course, could not be Let Stand, and soon there was outright warfare on the matter of whether Crowley would be getting any meat-based protein for lunch today. But Aziraphale was smiling again – he even laughed, once, at the disgusted face Crowley pulled – and Crowley eventually just ate the damn leaves that kept being miracled up on his plate.[16]

 But as relieving as it was to have some of Aziraphale’s typical temperament restored, the particular process of the thing niggled at Crowley well on into desert, a particularly fine cheesecake that even Aziraphale didn’t bother pretending that he would transform right beneath Crowley’s nose.[17]

 Even so, though.

 “Angel?” Crowley asked eventually.

 “Mmm?” Aziraphale didn’t even look up, too busy ensuring that he’d scraped up every last morsel of the heavenly- hellishly- no, simply _human_ creation off his plate.

 “What _is_ today?” He still hadn’t been able to come up with a satisfactory answer, as distracting as the meal and the company and the gradual return to amiable bickering had been. If. . . If the angel really did believe that Crowley was holding out on him, in any way, Crowley would be more than happy to do anything necessary to lay that doubt to rest.[18]

 And Aziraphale blushed. “Forget it, my dear. I’m only sorry I made such a fuss.” 

But the suspicion was already forming from somewhere deep within Crowley’s mind. “Angel. First of all, that little bit of twitchiness hardly counts as a _fuss_.[19] And second- ”

 “Can’t you just leave it?” Aziraphale asked plaintively.

 Crowley could not, of course, just leave it. “Is this the day – did we -?”

 But there’s no really apt way to communicate _Didn’t we come to an Arrangement on this day today, so many centuries ago?_ in a medium as lacking as the spoken word. So Crowley didn’t really ask, and Aziraphale didn’t actually confirm, and if both of them became somewhat lost in shared but silent memories of another warm springtime day when an angel and a demon had sat down to a shared meal, to discuss grievances and the proper airing and addressing thereof

– well.

 That didn’t make this day any less an anniversary.

 

~ ~ ~

[1] He just rather like his own face the way it currently was, thank you very much. It wasn’t that Aziraphale would do anything particularly horrendous, just – there was always that possibility with angels, wasn’t there?

[2] Hush, you - stop judging. It is perfectly understandable for a demon to use the word “adorable” without sarcasm or irony. In fact, it’s a prime example of blasphemy, when you get down to it – isn’t it only God who’s supposed to be adored? Hah. See?

[3] Just so he could go and murder – ahem, _terrorize_ , the object or being so responsible. Nobody made Aziraphale unhappy but Crowley, da- bless it.

[4] To something. Anything. Pouting was adorable and all, but Aziraphale wasn’t meant to be unhappy. Had he mentioned that part before?

[5] Bless it all.

[6] It didn’t matter that he had, in fact, seen what Aziraphale looked like when really, truly upset. Figures of speech and all that, right?

[7] And he even did _that_ poutingly. Now that was a level of dedication that Crowley could applaud, no matter how silly the effort to which it was being dedicated.

[8] Of all the human fads for Aziraphale to pick up on, it had to be vegetarianism? Truly one of the most hellish inventions Crowley had observed to date, and one of the few that he was actually happy to disclaim responsibility for.

[9] Volumes on what? Why, on _whatever_ you are currently imagining that it did, naturally. . .

[10] And oh, that right there was how Aziraphale had become undisputed Master of the Low Blow. Maybe he didn’t mean it, but that sounded a lot like a sally into an argument that was almost as old as their Arrangement: why had Crowley gone nosing around that silly apple in the first place? Aziraphale didn’t seem to understand that the answer that question is, and was, and always would be – because Crowley could. And because he didn’t understand the test. Or why it was a test, or why there even was a test if no-one could agree on what was actually being tested.

[11] Much like the Americans’ standardized tests, in fact. Another torment Crowley couldn’t have come up with if he’d tried.

[12] Another figure of speech, this. He’d seen actual racks in actual practice, and that was not something to be recommended in conjunction with the mind. Or spirit. Or anything, actually.

[13] Oh, he could, and he would. No, really, it would be his pleasure!

[14] Oh joy – yet _another_ figure of speech, and this one even stupider than most. What did that even mean, anyway, butter not melting in one’s mouth? Was the product that artificial? Did scheming to make your friends look ridiculous made your mouth go as cold as your cold-blooded heart?

[15] No, seriously, this was becoming ridiculous. How many centuries did one have to live on earth before figures of speech became inescapably inured in one’s conversation?

[16] No, it wasn’t as good for his reputation as it supposedly was for the corporation he wore, but he’d done worse for his fri- ahem, friendly colleagues – before. Yes he had, you can stop laughing at any time now.

[17] Some things you just don’t mess with.

[18] _Someone_ was having him on with these blessed figures of speech, dammitall.

[19] Take this from someone who’d once worked on the same level of Hell as Beelzebub.


End file.
